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  • Developing Buyer Personas: Find and Reach your Target Customers the proven way

    Developing Buyer Personas: Find and Reach your Target Customers the proven way

    In this blog, we give you a no-BS, straight up, clear shot of this phenomenal marketing tool called the Buyer Persona. By the time you’re done with this read, you will be ready to roll the red carpets for your perfect, tailor-made buyer personas that can literally shine a Master Shifu kinda of wisdom on your sales and marketing strategies.

    IN THIS BLOG

    1. WHAT is a buyer persona?
    2. WHY should I bother with one?
    3. HOW do I create them?
    4. HOW do I use them?

    WHAT is a buyer persona?
    Alan Cooper, the father of “Visual Basic” introduced the term Buyer Persona in his famous 1999 book “The inmates are running the asylum”. He introduced them as a practical, interaction design tool. Today, they have evolved into a strategic component of sales & marketing planning across industries. 

    Buyer persona is a detailed, written down, semi-fictional description of your target consumer group/s. It lists everything – from demographics to interests and hobbies; family size and income to their professional journey.

    It’s not like a CV though. Peppered simply with facts and figures or even characteristics. It’s more personal – deeper – if you please. Like YOUR account of a dear friend – her motivators and fears, her deepest desires and nightmares.


    WHY should I bother with one?
    Creating a buyer persona is time-consuming and can get overwhelming. You’re working with a whole lot of information and you may not intuitively know how to synthesize it. But… it’ll be worth it. In more ways than one.

    First up – buyer personas help eliminate or at least reduce your days of sifting through marketing strategies like a headless chicken – hoping something from your elaborate, ingenious list will work. Instead, buyer personas help you zoom in on your consumers and know them better. In effect, you tailor-make marketing strategies that resonate with them. You reduce costs of blanket marketing initiatives, improve marketing ROI, and enhance brand recall.

    “Clarity affords focus” – Thomas Leonard

    16%
    improvement in Click Through Rates of Email marketing driven by personas 
    71%
    number of companies that exceed revenue and lead goals AND have documented personas

    HOW to create them?
    Buyer personas that are based on real people are not designed in a closed, sound-proof conference room. As Tony Zambito – founder and leading authority in buyer insights and personas – reminds, buyer personas are NOT to be created; they are to be researched and crafted in the real world. 

    Let’s look the case of High Five – an online training organization to navigate through this simple, intuitive, and agile process of creating buyer personas.

    Their marketing strategy, communication channels will naturally have to be very different from those they’ve deployed in the past. What should they be? Well, an effective, true-to-its-salt buyer persona should take the guesswork away and answer that for High Five. Grab your cuppa and join me in designing one.

    Stage 1 – Collect information
    Let’s start with the target group of parents. As always – know your outcome. At the end of this entire exercise, you want to walk out with a clear understanding of who they are and why will they purchase your offering. To do so, set out to do some real research. Follow 3 best practices to make this quick and dirty. And useful.

    1. Reach out to consumers of diverse settings – as diverse as is practically possible for you. For High Five, we reached out parents across geographies, income groups, single child, single parent, race, and nationalities etc.

    2. Leverage face to face, telephonic, group, one-on-one or online survey formats.

    3. Don’t restrict yourself to information that buyers give about themselves. You shouldn’t. It’s likely riddled with blind spots. Reach out to other sources who may know about your buyers. Like your customer-facing teams – sales, complaint box reps, tech support etc. 

      Prepare a basic questionnaire to lend speed and accuracy and to ensure you have all areas of importance of covered. You obviously don’t want to get paralyzed with too much analysis nor do you want to presume what your target group wants.

      Keep a small incentive that encourages your consumer group to revert / participate – a discount or a sample.

      Stage 2 – Analyse
      All that psychographic information you’ve collected gives you valuable peek into the personality, aspirations and fears of your ideal buyer. But you must tease that out of that heap of data. At its simplest, it means you:

      1. Clean up your data. Ensure you have all your responses – from all channels and groups – collated.

      2. Identify prominent patterns, commonalities, and trends in this data. For instance, in the case of High Five, over 80% parents expressed their wish to see their children become A-players. Their decision to buy anything for their child was driven by how directly they believed it will impact this goal. This pattern screamed loud and clear at us leading to the birth Alpha Daddy – our first buyer persona in the target group of parents.

      2. Create your buyer persona template for reasons of standardization and ease of use. There are several tools and templates out there – for example the customer avatar worksheet by Digital Marketer or HubSpot’s Buyer Persona templates. You may also click on the image above to download an editable template that will ensure you have all essentials.

        4. There’s every possibility you may notice other prominent patterns. Another behaviour, motivator, or a demographic element that screams out at you. That simply means its time for a second or a third buyer persona within your target group. For the parent target group at High Five, we created our second persona called Muscle Mom – inspired by the significantly high number of mothers concerned about lack of right education on physical and mental health.  All our marketing paraphernalia designed for this persona then conveyed to them that we empathize with their concern, and that we can help. 

        HOW do I use them?
        If they’re crafted well, you can use your buyer personas in many-many ways. Here are a few ideas to help develop strategies that can get you to earn your persona’s business.

        1. Map prospects to personas
        To custom-make everything – from sales pitch to your marketing plan. If that’s not easy at the beginning, dip into your persona questionnaire to ask specific questions that can help you do the mapping. For example – “What are your top two aspirations for your child as she moves into being an independent adult?” OR “What health goals are you looking to achieve by choosing plant-based products?”. 

        When mapped, you can trigger automation rules that place prospects into email campaigns or other sales stages tailored to personas. In fact, using CRMs (like Hub Spot) you can upload your buyer personas to find out the type of marketing, communications or sales copy you’ll need or the best tool to reach them.

        2. Paint the right picture
        Direct your graphic designers to design visuals that connect with your target consumer. It’ll be like beating a dead horse if we were to tell how important that is but just to reinforce – remember that humans think in images. Right visuals strike the right chord. They drive your consumers to read your content – which, if written well, will encourage them respond to your call for action. It’s all connected. Really. 

        3. Translate, re-write, compose
        your marketing literature to the language your persona understands. The tone, the visuals, channels of communication say a lot. So, also share your persona details with your writers and have them craft a more resonant copy.

        Using a segment’s pain point to write an email subject line has proven to be hugely successful – “Is education today getting your child ready for tomorrow?”

        4. Build in some clock-work
        Use the research on your segment’s purchasing habits to send timely social ads. If you know that your young professionals purchase at night, ramp-up your Facebook advertising during post dinner hours. Strategically post content that appeals to each one of your buyer personas during time slots and days they’re most likely to view them. 

        5. Navigate through the right channels
        Know which social media channels your audience uses – reach them using the right channels. Utilize tools like Google Analytics to see which social networks appear in your referral traffic report or  https://keyhole.co/ for referring sites for relevant hashtags.

        In toto… 
        Buyer personas are a powerhouse of very useful information. But in our experience, they are highly under-utilized. Mostly because working with them requires an innate desire to be thorough and meticulous, and not always rely on heuristics or commonly held notions about people and behaviours. In fact, only 44 percent of B2B marketers use personas. The top 44% as a matter of fact.

        Invest time and energy in designing these using our easy-to-use and easy-to-customise templates. They will undeniably take you closer to the shoes your customers walk in and give you a nuanced understanding of your their mindset, beliefs, and fears. These, when fed into your marketing and sales efforts, will make your strategies sharp as a tack!

      • 5 Ways to Retaining Customers during Recession

        5 Ways to Retaining Customers during Recession

        Besides our new and improved culinary abilities, the one thing we can all thank COVID19 for is that now when somebody uses abstract words like uncertainty, crisis, ambiguity – our minds are not at loss. They know exactly what this could mean.

        It could be a day when you get ready to open your fancy boutique and realize you’re not allowed to. By Masters of the Universe. Or when you realize that everything you’ve manufactured is contaminated by a spoilt, stubborn mutant. And while these may be uncertainties you and I will witness only once in our lifetimes hopefully, others like take-overs, natural disasters, lockdowns are realities of the world we live in.

        A successful business today needs to evolve to navigate through this volatile landscape. It must, in spite of it as well as because of it, get ready to move away from its business-as-usual practices to find those hidden in-roads that lead to its customers. Quickly and directly.

        That’s exactly what we have here. 5 tried, tested, and proven successful ways to stay in touch with your customers. To keep that engaging tête-à-tête on and fruitful.

        IN THIS BLOG

        1. Hop on to the digital wagon – lock, stock and barrel
        2. Segment your customers and tailor your communication strategy
        3. Build stronger digital in-roads
        4. Craft relevant content
        5. Show empathy

        1. Hop on to the digital wagon – lock, stock and barrel
        COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of digital readiness like nothing else has. It’s told us, rather loudly, that the only way a business can continue unhindered is when its digital avatar exists. Just as prominently and effectively as its brick-and-mortar version, if not more. 

        Undoubtedly, then, COVID-19 has also triggered massive adoption of digitalization. Forbes reports a 129% year-over-year growth in U.S. & Canadian e-commerce orders in April’2020 and a 146% growth in all online retail orders. Numerous businesses from food to entertainment, to salons, and clothing brands have moved interactions and relationships to COVID-proof digital channels. Some bars in Beijing even continued to offer happy hours through online orders and delivery.

        There’s no better time for you than today to take your business online. It is the most successful business development activity you will undertake to cater to dispersed consumers and workers. A reality that’s likely to stay much after COVID.

        2. Segment your customers and tailor your communication strategy
        Your customers belong to one of the following categories.

        a. VIPs – these are your brand advocates who refer other qualified customers. Eg. social media influencers, bloggers etc

        b. New – those who’ve hopped on to your brand wagon recently – last 1 to 6 months

        c. Loyalists – those who have purchased the most over the last 6 to 24 months 

        d. Potentials – enquiries, customer segments you map to your buyer persona

        Segmenting your audience will ensure you share relevant marketing and product information with them. Also, called Product Messaging. It ensures you craft custom messages suitable to a specific segment of your customer base with the exact product/offer for which they’ve indicated interest or are likely to be interested in basis your analysis.

        Utilize competitions that reward customers. Online sales where orders placed within a particular time frame qualify for a free treat are good boosters. They are a good way to engage and are a great client acquisition tool.

        3. Build stronger digital in-roads
        Not just smses and emails, but webinars, online events, workshops, blogs etc. Eg: Urban Clap hosted videos of DIY beauty treatments when the COVID19 lockdown prevented its normal operations.

        With 2.95 billion users, social media is a powerful tool, not just a platform. Use it to connect, share, identify questions, research influencers and other experts. Facebook Live, for instance, is a great free-of-cost marketing feature that you can use to answer customer questions or share relevant advice. Do remember, Facebook Live videos can be saved which you can then use for building other user-based content.

        Update your Google My Business profile – it is the free listing that appears for your business on both Google Maps and Google Local Search results.

        4. Craft Relevant content
        Do not under-estimate the importance of building high impact, entertaining content. There’s a reason why TED Talks stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  Your audiences will come back to you because time spent on your content was fun and informative. Not because it was boring but informative. Probably unfortunate. Definitely true.

        – Build content that gives customers insights and timely advice to aid their online buying decisions.

        – Design content that is scalable and can be utilized to reach a wide range of customers. Videos are hugely successful in this regard and also help replicate the effects of face-to-face interaction. Which, of course, is what you want your content to achieve.

        – Keep your content transparent. Talk about the crisis you are facing and how you’re coping with it. Humanize your brand and open windows to build a connect at an empathic, emotional level.

        – Find ways of weaving in human connect through webinars, conferences, interviews, Q&As. This will enable your customers to feel the energy of your organization and be drawn to it.

        – Ramp up the frequency of contact and increase the time you would typically allocate to each customer.

        5. Show empathy
        If your community is facing the consequences of the crisis you’re dealing with, show empathy. Take pressure off from your customers by pausing paid memberships, offering flexibility in refunds, downgrades, discounts, or discontinuations.

        As Mckinsey reports, “By consciously providing empathy and care during this crisis, companies can build a foundation of goodwill and long-lasting emotional connections with the communities they serve.”

        It is a good idea to ensure that your digital efforts are corroborated with a human being. An actual person that your clients can reach out to OR an actual person who can contact clients who are showing stronger signals of disengagement.

        At the end of it all, here’s a little Master Shifu advice for you.

        Happy employees = Happy customers

        Invest in building a supportive, productive, and fun working environment – NOT in spite, but especially because of the crisis tumbling down on you.

        Well designed, and timely digital solutions will speak for you and take your brand far and wide. The human connection you build during such times, through your own face time and that of your employees, will always be the ultimate clincher.

      • How to adapt your market strategies during an economic slowdown?

        How to adapt your market strategies during an economic slowdown?

        In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. – Albert Einstein

        In case you haven’t heard and read about it already, it is official: we are in recession. According to The World Economic Forum, the shock to the global economy from COVID-19 has been both faster and more severe than the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and even the Great Depression. As we grapple with uncertainty and adapt to a changed marketplace, one thing remains clear: our businesses can’t afford to slow down.

        That’s why all across the world, restaurants have adapted quickly to set-up online ordering and delivery services, gyms and yoga studios are changing their conventional operation methods and live-streaming at-home workouts. Also, conferences, events etc that havent been cancelled have gone completely virtual and most brands have adapted their marketing approach and found innovative ways to retain their customers. Most of these businesses have two things in common:

        1. Digital has become their lifeline

        2. They have swiftly adapted to meet the challenges of the unprecedented market situation caused by Covid-19, and more importantly, they haven’t gone completely dark

        IN THIS BLOG

        1. How companies lost their “share of voice” in historic recessions?
        2. How consumer behaviour changes during a recession?
        3. How to recession proof your marketing strategy?
             i. Niche market analysis 
            ii. Advertising tactics that deliver results
            iii. Your customers first
            iv. Be sensitive and innovative
            v. Double your content marketing efforts

        How companies lost their “share of voice” in historic recessions?
        It wouldn’t be wrong to think that most businesses across the world would cut down on their advertising spends during this period. According to Marketing Week, 86% of marketers are now delaying or reviewing their marketing campaigns. But to understand why this strategy wont work, we only need to look at the examples of companies that went ‘completely dark’ in previous recessions and ceded ground to their competitors.

        During the 1990-91 recession, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell took advantage of McDonald’s decision to drop its marketing budget. Pizza Hut’s share grew by 61% and Taco Bell’s by 40% and McDonald’s reported a drop of 28%.

        In the more recent 2008 recession, Amazon’s share grew by 28% as it increased its ‘share of voice’ through marketing and focusing on innovation, most notably through new Kindle products. The consumers perceived Amazon as an innovative company that offered low-cost alternatives when there was a cash crunch all around.

        So what is a brand’s ‘share of voice’ and what happens to yours when you decide to go dark during a recession? 

        It is the measure of the market your brand owns, compared to your competitors. It shows how much you dominate the conversation in your industry. The more market share you have, the greater popularity and authority you are likely to have among users and prospective customers. While share of voice referred to a brand’s share of paid advertising, it now has a  broader definition that includes various elements of digital marketing, including social media and keyword traffic.

        When a recession happens, other brands pull their marketing budgets, which means your share of voice in that market can only increase. Typically, a 15% share of voice means that you have a 15% market share. Suppose your competitors halve their Ad spends during a recession, it means with the same marketing spend you would now get 30% share of voice. In addition, you also get to project an image of stability to your consumers when you advertise during challenging times.

        On the other hand, brands that deeply cut into their Ad spends and communications budgets in a down period find that  the cost to regain share of voice in the market, once economy turns, is usually four or five times as much as the cuts saved.

        Moral of the story – when a recession hits, do not reduce your Ad spend, this is the time to gain more visibility and increase your market share.

        How consumer behaviour changes during a recession?
        As soon as the global markets start sending those worrying signals, a certain kind of people begin to dominate conversations. For instance, those that have seen their savings or retirement funds wiped out in past recessions. Their narrative – economic downturn, falling markets and job losses will erode buying power and make consumers cautious. Predictably so, consumers at large begin to prioritize consumption by sorting products and services into these four categories – as identified in the Harvard Business Review:

        – Essentials are necessary for survival or perceived as central to well-being

        – Treats are indulgences whose immediate purchase is considered justifiable

        – Postponables are needed or desired items whose purchase can be reasonably put off

        – Expendables are perceived as unnecessary or unjustifiable

        Companies that put customer needs under the microscope, take a scalpel rather than a cleaver to the marketing budget, and nimbly adjust strategies, tactics and product offerings in response to shifting demand are more likely than others to flourish – both during and after a recession.
        – Harvard Business Review

        How to recession proof your marketing strategy?
        We looked at why you don’t want to put the kibosh on your advertising during a recession. We’ve also seen how consumers may adjust their buying behavior during an economic downturn. How do you then make sure that your advertising efforts don’t go to waste in a changed market?

        According to Millward Brown, it is crucial to question what each element in your marketing plan is intended to achieve. How will it encourage brand loyalty? What barrier to purchase does it address? Will it make the brand seem worth paying more for, or will it create a belief that this is a cheap brand?

        A majority of brands 10+ years ago were not utilising digital marketing the way they are today. The whole marketing approach has changed and become more data-driven which enables you to pin-point where each advertising dollar should be spent. Audience data analytics along with relevant Ad placements would provide you with valuable insights and more efficient marketing strategies.

        Here is what you need to focus on:

        1. Niche Market Analysis 
        As a brand you need to dive deep into understanding your target customer and how their buying behaviour would change during a recession. It’s crucial to understand how customers reassess priorities and reallocate funds during a downturn. You need to tailor this framework for your own industry, to understand how buyer behaviour will  change depending on whether your offering is an essential, a treat, postponable or expendable.  Use that information to devise a marketing strategy and messaging that resonates with your audience.

        2. Advertising tactics that deliver results
        When the market is slow and sales are tough to come by, a more strategic look at your advertising plan can come to your rescue. Digital Ad solutions can reach consumers at all stages of their awareness and consideration cycle:

        a. Banner Ads, video and native ads build awareness

        b. Custom content communicates a story to your audience

        c. Retargeting keeps your brand on top of their mind

        d. Paid search enables you to reach those who are eagerly looking for solutions


        During a market slow-down, concentrate your ad spend on those tactics and placements that will drive maximum results and give you the best bang for your buck. For instance, if you think advertising to cold traffic usually lowers your ROI, focus your Ad spend more on Retargeting or Paid search, so as to show your ads to mostly those who are still looking to buy.

        3. Your customers first
        The 80-20 rule applies to most businesses. It means 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. These 20% customers can become your business’s lifeline during this time. Ask your customers what they need from you. It is crucial that you communicate with them to retain their business. And by ‘communicate’ we mean using multiple platforms to get your message out. Just dropping an email may not be enough. A lot of businesses are reaching out to their customers and offering alternative solutions or innovative ways to keep them engaged.

        Kiehl’s immediately began communicating ‘home-delivery’ solutions to its customers through Emails, SMS and their social media profiles since all their stores had to be shut due to the Covid-19 lockdown. They also started weekly Insta Live sessions with their Skin care experts to help their customers with DIY (do it yourself) tips and in turn stay on top of their mind.

             

        4. Be sensitive and Innovative
        The campaigns you ran before the pandemic started may not work now. Think about whether your messaging needs to change to be sensitive to the overall mood of your consumers. Everyone is living through unprecedented times with lockdowns, lay-offs and no clarity on how the situation will unfold. 

        This is also the time to consider your core values as an organization. Be innovative if there is an opportunity. Can you pivot your product or service to help your customers? Can you address or solve their pain points? People will always remember who helped them at these times. At the same time, they will remember who tried to profit by preying on insecurity. 

        5. Double your content marketing efforts
        While you may not advertise on all paid media platforms at this time, it could be a great time to focus on Content marketing and SEO. Both Content marketing and SEO are long term efforts, so step into the game now to reap the benefits as and when things start getting back to normal.

        A well devised content marketing strategy should focus on the core value you provide to your customers, and offer timeless solutions to their problems. Think how you could help your customers during and after the economic downturn. What solutions could they be actively searching for? Creating long-form blog posts, e-books, ultimate guides and templates helps build authority in your industry and positions you as an expert.

        While creating content ask yourself:

        a. What keywords do you want to rank for 8-12 months from now?

        b. Is there a product or service niche that you want to be known for?

        c. How can you repurpose your existing content to make it SEO friendly?

        d. What are your core competencies?

        e. How and what can you offer that’s different from your competitors?

        In Conclusion
        While it isn’t clear how long this pandemic-induced recession will last, one thing brands can’t afford is to ‘go dark’ and lose their market share in short or long term. Whether you are a big, well-known brand or a small one, you need to find ways to reach out to your customers, maintain or even increase your marketing spends during this period. A recession should be no reason to stop your advertising or marketing efforts. Like many successful organizations today have, turn towards the astute, money-wise strategies the digital marketing world has to offer. Outside that door you are certain to find opportunities to reach out, maintain connect, and sell to your target consumer.

      • A Step by Step Guide to Your First Killer Webinar

        A Step by Step Guide to Your First Killer Webinar

        Nailing it like pros

        In times when webinars are becoming a norm, it can be daunting for newbies to make their first webinar without the fear of eye rolls. Because obviously, there are good webinars and bad webinars. A good one takes your business closer to its objective and leaves your audience inspired. A bad one… well, it may just get you to witness The Great Migration of your audience to your competitor’s lands. 

        In this blog, we go through a step by step process of creating a good webinar. The one that addresses real issues, bridges real gaps, and takes everybody involved closer to their unique goal post. To do so, we turn towards the super comprehensive and agile ADDIE process. (Don’t let the jargon scare you. Stay with me. The knots will untangle.)


        IN THIS BLOG

        1. ANALYSE the why
        2. DESIGN the what
        3. DEVELOP the content
        4. IMPLEMENT the webinar
        5. EVALUATE results

        Step 1 – ANALYSE the why
        From Cheshire Cat to Simon Sinek – everybody is trying to get us to clarify our big WHY – the raison d’etre of our actions. 



        Your decision to host a webinar is no different. Knowing why you want to host a webinar, why you should invest your time and money on one will help you craft an impactful one. It’ll also go a long way in ensuring that your spirits stay up when you hit roadblocks. Yes, you will hit roadblocks. A few. 

        So, really put that pen to paper and find your answers to these questions. 

        1. What is the Business Objective you want your webinar to impact? Sales, lead generation, customer connect? A clear objective will help scope the webinar, keep you from trying to achieve too much, or tell too much – a pitfall not easy to avoid for subject matter experts.

        Knowing what you want to achieve will guide you to take a calculated decision of how much investment to make. And at the end, how to measure the returns on it.

        2. What are the goals your audience would like to achieve through your webinar/s?

        – Who is your target audience? Know their buyer persona – their motivators + fears.

        – What would give them a distinct feeling of having gained from your webinar? A new skill, a paradigm shift, or a useful freebee? 

        – Think about what real life challenges your webinar can solve for them. Let that be your motif.

          Step 2 – DESIGN the what
          Now is when you scope and plan your Project Webinar. This is the stage which decides whether your final product looks like it is out of a Michelin star kitchen or is a desperate attempt to salvage your reputation in front of your girlfriend. 


          Each of the points below are things you plan right at the outset to reduce your oops moments and reduce the avoidable last minute (& expensive) fixes. 

          1. Choose webinar topic/s that hit that sweet spot of what you and what your audience would want from investing time and effort in this webinar.


          2. Choose the right frequency to host the webinar/s. The 2019 High Growth Study by Hinge Marketing reports that of firms deploying webinars, 68% host multiple times per year, 25% monthly and 7% weekly.

          3. Identify the best format. Remember function dictates form. The goal you wish to achieve should govern the choice of format. Choose from

          – Single presenter

          – Panel discussion

          – Interview with an industry expert

          – Q&A format – driven by audience interaction

          If choosing to host webinars frequently, consider changing your format now and then. Create monthly themes to help your audience see the method in the madness.

          4. What’s the number of registrations, therefore attendance, ideal for your webinar format and goals? In our experience, average attendance rate is 44% and anywhere from 40 t0 50 attendees is good, especially considering engagement and interactions. 

          5. Plan your promotions. Do you have an in-house digital marketing team or will you engage with a firm? What’s going to be your marketing spend, how many days in advance should you start the promotions? At least a fortnight before is strongly recommended.

          Include a short questionnaire – with well thought-out questions – in your registration form. That information will prove to be a goldmine for your content and
          script.

          6. What’s the best duration for each webinar? What’s the best time slot and day to host your webinar? 45 to 60 minutes is a good window to play around with in the beginning. Mind the time zones of your target audience when creating the schedule. 

          7. What are you offering to your attendees? A discount, an access to a special club, free trial, free version, money back guarantee, free evaluation/consultation? What is the time limit that this offer will stand for?

          8. What will be the call to action for your audience? A click on the BUY button, a registration form; a call or meeting with your sales team? A clear call to action is really the difference between an impressive webinar and an impactful one.

          9. Choose your webinar platform. They can cost anywhere from a peanut to an arm and offer just as wide a set of features. The features you need today and will need in the very near future should influence your choice. 

          Ensure the platform supports mobile devices. Over 25% of your attendees will be joining from phone.

          10. Standardize brand guidelines. Colours, fonts, background, logo placement, brand introduction etc. As the line between office and working nooks at home blurs, these become hugely important. 

          If designing the background at home, keep your back towards the wall & face the room. That way, you only need to stage manage the wall instead of an entire room. Keep your light source and camera up and in front to paint a flattering little picture of yourself.

          11. Create essential roles for Project Webinar. You don’t need a buzzing team at your disposal. Find just one additional human to share these responsibilities with.
           
          – Marketing & promotion – responsible for launching promotions on time or to liaise with your digital marketing team to get this done

          – Audience engagement – before and after the webinar

          – Back end support – responsible to launch polls, respond to chats, liaise with live audience; especially needed during the webinar if your format is Q&A or panel discussion

          – Content developer – for your webinar presentation plus promotions and after event engagement will need dedicated time and focus from you or another expert 

          – Host/s or Speaker/s – may be the same person or different people

          Sharing the load of presenting your webinar with a co-host creates scope for conversation, banter, and fun. All in all, two engaging hosts are better than one engaging host.

          Step 3 – DEVELOP the content
          In spite of all the professionalism you will exude after nailing items in DESIGN phase, your audience is not likely to come back if the content of that 1-hour webinar has them OD-ing on caffeine – or thoughts of caffeine. Be sure to put in your most creative, your most strategic head here. 

          1. Give your webinar title a thought. It drives your registrations after all. 

          “… for new businesses”; “Quality Tools for modern shop floors” – titles referring to profession, goals, interest, hobbies of your target group have proven to be effective to hook attention.

          2. Structure the content. Like a Table of Content or Index. It will help you build a smooth and logical flow, and allow your audience to navigate better as you speak.

          3. Use this structure to design a compelling landing page for your registrations.

          4. Go through your registration responses. Note their workplaces, cities, interests, problems they want to solve. Weave them into your content. And into your script. Address them before the Q&A section.

          5. You don’t want to sound like a cloyingly polite sales rep with a hidden agenda. So, keep your main points, the tips & tools you’re teaching absolutely distinct from the selling pitch. Handle that as a separate “call for action” section after.

          6. Ensure your slide deck is clean and contemporary. It conveys your ideas well and is predominantly visual. Document design for marketing and sales is a skill. If that’s not your area of expertise, you’re better off engaging with an expert.

          A quick search on “Presentation Templates” will give you bazillion choices of free or paid versions. Some with rather neat designs you can customize to your brand
          guidelines.

          Step 4 – IMPLEMENT the Webinar
          Now, is the time when you serve the dish you’ve so laboriously created in your little Michelin Star kitchen. 

          Before the D-day, ensure that you:

          – Practice. A lot of webinar platforms allow you to launch a practice instance. Utilize that to nail your script. Do this especially thoroughly if the webinar has more than 1 speaker

          – Practice launching of polls, typing in timely responses to the chats etc with your backend support buddy

          – Check visuals, lighting, background, audio, internet speed

          Aim for internet upload speed of over 5Mbps to host a smooth webinar. You can test your upload speed at SpeedTest.net.

          On the D-day, ensure:

          – You and your team launch the webinar at least 30 minutes in advance

          – You get the fundamentals right – start and end on time; look professional and relatable; smile; mind your Ps and Qs

          Once the event is over, send a Thank You note within 24 hours. In this, consider including:

          – Highlights of the webinar 

          – Short (not more 3 questions preferably) feedback questionnaire

          – Questions to seek opinions on what they’d want to know more about, and what would encourage them to be a part of the next one

          Step 5 – EVALUATE Results
          The feedback forms – if your audience does respond, will give you food for thought. And if you’re lucky, a clear direction towards your “what next?”. But effective measurement of ROI is a different league. And, nope, it’s not for the weak hearted. Especially if your webinar is about customer-education. Or product-demos near the bottom of the funnel but not quite the last touch in your buyer’s journey. Even when sales is the ultimate goal, there are several ways to handle webinar ROI.

          – Number of registrants – use this metric monitor growth of your webinar audience and topics that attract the most attendees

          – Attendance rate – how many registrants actually attend the webinar

          – Engagement/interest rate – hidden behind proprietary algorithms of webinar software, it’s an indicator of how engaged your audience is. A high engagement rate could potentially mean high leads

          – Number of generated leads – knowing how many leads can be attributed to the webinar (or any marketing channel) is powerful – a good CRM can help you that; for small to medium businesses – a quick post sales survey can help too

          – Revenue per lead – understanding value of a lead helps measure ROI of that channel. If a lead is worth $500, the webinar production cost is $250, and it generates two leads – you have a return of $750 for your investment in the webinar.

          Decide which metric is most relevant for you at the beginning – during the ANALYZE stage and make it known to your team. This ensures everybody puts in concentrated efforts towards a common goal.

          In conclusion
          The ability to craft a great webinar and take it to the right audience can be life-changing – for you and your business. Nail the planning and give yourself a 30-day period to launch your first one. Download this checklist + scheduler + ROI calculator designed by the marketing nerds at CTC to help you stay you on track.

          • How Webinars Can Help in Times of Uncertainty?

            How Webinars Can Help in Times of Uncertainty?

            Utilizing webinars in a VUCA world

            The world we live in today is an uncertain, fickle-headed place. It’s the truth we’re all finding ways to come to terms with as the Corona story unfolds. And while the Corona issue is an obvious contributor, there are several other factors that make our world today rather VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous).  To name a few – the diminishing line between business and political leaders, the maddening pace of technological changes, increasing need to access global talent, or the need for all things “instant” by customers & employees. 

            So, what do these uncertain times demand of modern-day businesses? How do businesses stay profitable in such an environment? By ensuring that their communication channels with employees, investors, and customers stay open – at all times and in spite of odds. 

            Enter Webinars. As a medium to establish real-time, face-to-face contact with stakeholders spread across the world; to utilize creative ways to build brands, generate leads, even sell. As a medium to build deep, meaningful relations. 

            Admittedly, the webinar is first a marketing tool. And a great one at that. While there are many marketing tools that could be used at a time like this (like pay per click or email marketing), webinars come in as the #1 choice because they allow you to demonstrate your product, service or idea to a live audience. The trick is, of course, to be able to do it right.

            Read below to see what a webinar done well means, how that can be the instant answer to mitigating business uncertainties and branching away from a single business model.

            Before we dive in, here is a quick statistic by ON24. 

            – 89% hosts agreed that the webinar is their platform of choice to showcase and grow their business

            – 95% respondents agreed on webinars as a key to their lead generation and marketing efforts

            – 75% reported that they use webinars to build their brand

            – 76% achieved more leads by running webinars

            – 69% respondents scaled up their market through webinars

            IN THIS BLOG

            1. Why do businesses need to adopt webinars today?
            2. Types of webinars
            3. Top 8 business goals you can achieve through a great webinar (with real life stories and best practices)
                i. Lead Generation
                ii. Sales
                iii. Branding
                iv. Creating value
                v. Events
                vi. Training
                vii. Education
                viii. Product Demo
            4. In Conclusion

            Why do businesses need to adopt webinars today?

            Here are a few ways in which webinars impact the 3 big levers of your business.



            Types of webinars
            Classified simply on the basis of how you host a webinar, there are 2 variations.

            Live
            A live webinar is an online meeting or a presentation held in real time. The presenter or the host connects with numerous attendees from different locations. It’s big plus lies in giving its attendees the ability to interact, exchange body language cues, and therefore afford a real conversation.

            On Demand
            This is a recorded webinar used for viewing “on-demand” by new attendees whenever they want to. The big plus here is that the viewer can attend it at his/her convenience.


            Top 8 business goals you can achieve through a great webinar

            Lead Generation
            A lead generation webinar is one of the most common types of webinars offered today. This webinar is chock-full of expert advice and attempts to solve a real problem for its viewers. It is important to understand that when you offer this type of a webinar, your advice should stand independent of your product or service, making it a largely non-selling webinar.

            To achieve this, bridge the gap between knowledge and information. Do share knowledge about the industry, about best practices etc but not explicit and detailed information about your product. If the knowledge you share is relevant and presented well, it will establish your credibility with your prospects. That means they will come back for more.

            When you share valuable knowledge through your content, not only do you get a new lead and a chance to sell, but you establish your brand much before the customer has consumed your product or service.

            Content that establishes your expertise + Content that solves real problems + Content presented well
            =
            An effective lead generation webinar

            In a lead gen webinar, providing valuable content directly contributes to your ability to collect valuable information from your customers

            Take the example of Hubspot –  an online marketing, sales and service software.  Their website has a section dedicated to valuable on-demand webinars that solve business problems their current or potential customers may face. This gated content library is used to secure leads on an ongoing basis. Here is what their webinar library currently looks like.

            At the same time, ensure you utilize your live as well as on-demand webinars to generate leads.

            A study by Gotowebinar suggests that 73% of professionals prefer on demand videos over live videos. As long as you are delivering enough value via your content, you will keep increasing the lead flow into your business.

            Here are some best practices to design a Lead Generation webinar that give an adrenalin boost to your marketing efforts.

            Do’s:

            – Choose a topic that your target audience identifies with

            – Focus on adding value and building credibility. Your goal, at this stage, is to ensure that you become the preferred point of contact for anyone seeking a solution within your industry

            – Invite an industry expert as a guest speaker – it helps establish credibility

            – Invite a guest speaker who is an expert – it adds credibility

            – Use interactive tools. Involve your audience, allow them to ask and share opinions. Keep a slot for Q& A in live webinar and an option to fire-off questions via forms/emails in on-demand ones

            – Respond. Always and on the promised turn around time

            – Send follow up emails/newsletters with more valuable content on an ongoing basis

            – Finally, attach contact forms. That’s a great way to narrow down leads. Ask relevant questions but don’t make it too long. We’re yet to meet anybody who loves filling long forms!

            Don’ts:

            – Target audience without looking at their specific interests and problems

            – Drone on about yourself and your company in the very beginning of the webinar (at least not for very long)

            – Focus on selling in the start or the middle of the webinar. If you must, throw it in towards the end

            Sales
            A sales webinar’s primary objective is to sell. And most experts will agree that you can sell anything on a webinar. In a study, ON24 analyzed the conversion rates for webinars with a minimum of 100 attendees. The study concluded that:

            – Webinars related to communication got 67.05% conversions

            – Training webinars got 44.79% conversions

            – Marketing webinars achieved 39.10%

            – And education webinars got 30.79%

            With our experience in helping businesses market online, we can honestly say that it is never easy making a sale when the potential customer first comes in contact with your service or product. There needs to be enough trust in the mind of your potential customer to buy from you. And that building of trust doesn’t happen overnight. It’s got to be built. So, the only way a webinar with sales as its objective succeeds is when the host strives to build a strong connection with attendees. On a human and emotional level.

            There are some businesses that have a proven track record of sales success on webinars.

            Our research confirms that knowledge-based services or products that allow users to continue learning in the medium that’s similar to the webinar itself are ideal for selling.

            An example is a webinar that sells online coaching to students. The webinar talks about the coach’s credentials, coaching methodology and fees. The user then goes to the page, fills up the subscription form and starts attending the online coaching class. It is a seamless process.

            Lewis Howes went from being broke to earning $6300 per hour from his first webinar series! Today, he is a lifestyle entrepreneur, high performance business coach and keynote speaker. And it all started with a book he wrote and an invitation to be a guest speaker on his friend’s webinar. The story of how Lewis structured that webinar is very interesting too. He had a 1-hour slot in which to speak about LinkedIn in this free promotional webinar. He offered very valuable advice for the better part of the webinar and then threw in a free LinkedIn training for 50 minutes towards the end. And just before ending the webinar, he opened up 10 exclusive spots for advanced LinkedIn training for a completely customised approach at a 50% discount for a limited number of hours. He walked away with $6300 in his Paypal account.

            So, what is that you can really sell well over a webinar?

            – Digital products

            – Real products

            – Services

            – Workshops and seminars

            – Online & offline memberships

            – Private & group coaching

            Branding
            Some of the best webinars out there today are hosted by people who have established their authority in their field of work. People attend seminars, courses and undergo coaching when they are interested in a particular subject and want to learn from an expert. Similarly, hosting a webinar on specialised topics positions you as an expert, increases your credibility and ultimately helps you create your own brand.

            The question that could be asked is, does one really need to be an established name or brand to host a webinar and expect people to attend? The answer to that is a big NO. 

            Webinars offer a perfect platform for you to build your own brand from scratch. You don’t need a finished product, a mailing list or even a social following, you can literally build your business with webinars. If you can establish authority in your area of expertise by offering solutions to problems that a majority of your target audience might be facing, you can set up your business using only webinars and scale from there.

            If you are interested in increasing your brand value, get in your industry experts and have them share content designed exclusively for your webinars. This is a great way to co-market as well as introduce yourself to new audiences!

            These best practices will make sure your brand building webinar gives you the perfect bang for your buck.

            – Ensure your topics are really well researched and tie in with whatever is most current. Take cues from topics covered by SEMrush

            – When choosing the industry experts, examine their existing social branding. It is important, if not mandatory, that your expert have a decent following online

            – Brand all material and content you share before and after

            – Market your webinars well in advance; 7-10 days prior to the event is ideal

            – Record and create an on-demand library and make them available on your website

            Creating value
            Until now we’ve seen how webinars can be an effective marketing tool at the top of your marketing funnel. However, webinars can also be used to create value for your existing customers. Value creating webinars are a bit different from lead generation or sales webinars in the sense that they do not necessarily “always” talk about your product or service. The idea here is to provide value to your existing customers by focusing on relieving audience’s pain or enhancing quality instead of self-promotion. These webinars offer such good value content that consumers can’t help but share through word of mouth or social media shares and likes.

            Trello has a great on-demand webinar hub. Even a cursory glance will tell you that this hub isn’t all about what Trello does. They’ve thrown in a great mix of webinars which aim at general business and productivity content. All these webinars create value for their existing user base and are a great way for Trello to also collect valuable potential customer data.

            If you have a business, you’re certainly in a place that impacts an aspect of your consumer’s lives. Pull out your expertise, connect with your industry experts, and craft webinars that improve your customer’s lives.

            Events
            A “webinar-based” or “virtual” event is where you hold conferences, meeting, trade shows over the webinar. These can be of 2 kinds – (i) a “pure bred” webinar event where you’re only engaging with audiences virtually; (ii) a “cross” or a hybrid event where you engage with a live “in-person” audience as well as with a virtual one simultaneously. In either case, a well-planned, successful webinar-based event ensures you reach a wider audience, improve event ROI, and get access to valuable data points you may not get otherwise.

            In the year 2020, choosing to host a web-based event also means you do not have to cancel or push your event to another year or to a different planet. 

            Yellow co., amongst many others, has converted its annual Yellow Conference into a virtual format. 

            There are several creative ways in which you can host a web-based event. Take your cue from Apple Special Events with Tim Cook announcing the launch of the next Apple gadget to his live & virtual audience. Or, Social Media Examiner, which sells virtual tickets to its annual Social Media Marketing World conference – the biggest live event in the social media world. The virtual attendees get access to the recorded conference as well as to a private networking group to meet and communicate with peers. Organizations like Moz and Content Marketing World record their annual conferences to curate a compelling on-demand library. These are then made available post the event free of cost or at a price. 

            If a large event involving your internal and/or external stakeholders is what you had in mind for 2020, we suggest you don’t let the Corona monster derail your plans. Choose a webinar-based path and start planning now. Do ensure:

            – hosting virtual events requires the same care & attention as hosting physical events

            – to not drop the ball on your planning and preparation during the complete event cycle

            – to bring strong facilitation – virtual emceeing is done at a slower pace than face to face emceeing

            Cycle of a successful event


            Training
            You have most undoubtedly witnessed the webinar in its avatar as a learning tool in last few weeks of the world dealing with the COVID19 menace. 

            A business objective that the webinar is perfectly tailor-made to achieve is that of training far-flung, dispersed learners. From employees to customers, from niche or complex application trainings, to the fuzzy & nebulous ones on behaviour and performance. The webinar offers a great solution. 

            A 2019 study funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany attempted to understand how webinars performed in comparison to online and face-to-face instruction in promoting learning and satisfaction. The study concluded that with regard to learning effects, webinars appeared to be equal to face-to-face learning. This was attributed to its built-in capability to promote interaction.

            What’s more? Converting your training sessions into webinars does not require you to reinvent the wheel. You can utilize your existing presentations, handouts, and other collaterals. Just keep in mind different learning styles while synthesizing the content into 50-60 minutes cohesive chunks. 

            Very early on in this journey with webinar trainings, you will appreciate how you’re able to expand your reach, augment e-learning – if any, and build engagement. All this while saving time and cost! 

            Multinational software organization Citrix Systems, Inc. until recently spent over $600,000 per year to conduct in-person trainings for its new employees in every new region it expanded to. The last 2 years, however, have seen Citrix build the same level of engaged and immersive learning experience through webinars. In Citrix’s experience, training webinars have substantially lowered the barriers to global expansion & up-skilling of employees. 

            You can use it too to offer an immersive & sticky learning experience to your learners. Just remember to:

            – Leverage interaction tools like text-chat, poll, hand-raise, voting, drawing in every session

            – Put together compelling content – focused, driven by learner needs, and diverse. Weave in e-learning courses, videos, audios, images, presentations, tests, multiple presenters etc.

            – Follow up with feedback questionnaires and assessments to keep the engagement alive 

            Education
            Webinars allow schools and colleges to offer a blended learning model of pedagogy. They get to host their lectures live and on demand to students spread across. And students get to complete their degrees and diplomas from anywhere, yet gain from the rich experience of being guided by a teacher. 

            Webinars have come in most handy today as the education industry grapples with curriculums in a locked-down world. Nearly every education institute – from kindergartens to universities – is utilizing them to reach out to its students in the safety of their homes.

            According to a study by the U.S. Department of Education, “on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face
            instruction.”

            Recent years have also seen the education industry evolve to leverage the webinar as a tool to engage with its prospective students. Forums such as open days online, virtual campus tours, online meetings, online recruitment guide help universities give their prospective students a first-hand understanding of the life in store for them. 

            Universities like the Durham University Business School (DUBS) replicate the grandeur of their physical open days in their Virtual Open Day. In a webinar branded in DUBS signature style, students move across 16 individual sessions on a variety of topics to learn from a faculty and interact with them. Outcome – the university exceeded its registration target by 36% and over 60% of registrants stayed engaged with the event throughout (industry average). 

            If expanding your reach as an education institute is your objective, it’s time you adopt webinars. Remember:

            – When offering a blended model of pedagogy, supporting your learning community with a variety of tools is essential. These may include – email support, video/audio meetings in one-on-one or small group format

            – Build student interaction by means of collaborative tasks that get them to engage with each other

            – Follow up and share learning resources – handouts, lecture recordings, assessment

            Product Demo
            A product demonstration using webinar tools including screenshare, application sharing, integrated videos clips, or simply an on-camera demonstration comprises nearly 39% of all webinars hosted on Click Meeting. A deminar, as its often called, enables you to demonstrate your product or service while having a real-time conversation with your prospects. 

            Let’s take for example the SaaS industry. Most of the applications and platforms these organizations sell are complex and comprise plenty of features seeking clear explanation. So, while video based product demos win hands down in comparison to traditional product literature, Webinars offer an additional advantage of interaction. 

            71 percent of people buy because they like, trust and respect the salesperson they have engaged with. Live product demo webinars, augmented with features like chat, hand-raisers, online poll help you build conversations and relationships.

            Actuate, an embedded analytic software company, acquired by Open Text, started leveraging branded live and on-demand webinars to reach out to its customers. The increased frequency of live demos and quality archived content had a pretty dramatic effect on the results within the first quarter. The organization saw a 25% increase in new contacts from the bi-weekly product demos, a 65% registration to attendee rate for the demos.  Almost 90% of webinar attendees stayed for the entire event.

            Product demo webinars, used as bottom-of-the-funnel webinars are built to give your prospects the information and comfort they need to make that final purchase decision. To craft a powerful one, remember to:

            – Craft your script intelligently and passionately. Webinars work because they allow your customers to see that

            – Highlight your brand, product USP, share testimonials – explicitly

            – Leverages webinar tools like screen sharing, application sharing, and video recordings to keep it engaging

            In conclusion
            From learning yoga to shortlisting the next kitchen gadget, a lot is happening over webinars. This ubiquitous, simple tool has stepped up and come to our rescue to help us inform, connect, and engage with fellow humans in 2020. As a result, the rise of webinars as a business tool of the year has been unmistakable. ON24 reports a 66% jump from the number of webinars hosted in Mar 2019 to Mar2020. There’s a high chance you have either already attended or are planning to attend at least one during the current month.

            So, if you’re not using webinars already to meet your business goal, now is the time. If you are using it, widen your options and bring a variety of tools and features into your webinars. Explore other ways to truly harness its potential. Do check our step-by-step guide to designing a perfect webinar for a deep dive by our experts into what works and what doesn’t. 

            • пунктуация Не такой, как все Русский язык